A Tale of Two Sitas from Precolonial Bengal: Analyzing the Construction of Chastity in the Krittibas Ramayana and Candravati’s Sitayana

Central Argument: This poster examines how chastity was understood in precolonial Bengal by analyzing two Ramayanas: the fifteenth-century Krittibas Ramayana and the sixteenth-century Candravati Ramayana, referred to as the Sitayana. Through these textual sources, I analyze how chastity was defined and its critical importance to the medieval category of “women.” Following Mary Douglas’ argument, where she states that the body is “a symbol of society,” and demarcates the boundaries between purity and pollution, I argue that female sexual conduct in the Bengali Ramayanas reflected the landscape of the chastity imaginaire, whereby Krittibas and Candravati negotiated with existing brahmanical religio-legal texts and the historical context within which they were based. Further, in Uma Chakravarti’s analysis of brahmanical patriarchy, she demonstrates how religio-legal texts like the Manusmriti sanctioned the subordination of women, whereby caste and gender hierarchy were intimately interconnected, and were also necessary to exert sexual control over women to maintain patrilineal succession and caste purity. Reflecting on this argument, I analyze how chastity was important for the hierarchization of various social relationships, placing the question of jatinash or the destruction of the jati at the core – highlighting the centrality of caste. While Sita remains the central focus of the study, I demonstrate that Rama’s ultimate challenge to her chastity, through the agnipariksha, is foreshadowed through the sexual conduct of other female characters like Bhagirathi’s mothers, Ahalya, Surpanakha, Mandodari, among others, and is key to understanding the expectations of chastity and the clear differences in sexual expectations between Brahmin wives and those referred to as nisacharis.

Poster Abstract: This poster will employ a tripartite visual structure to map the gendered universe of the female archetypes of the two Ramayanas. The left panel will focus on the Krittibas Ramayana, where I will arrange key figures along a vertical visual spectrum moving from brahmanical purity to sexual transgression. Rather than simply cataloguing characters, this panel renders how chastity was used as a regulatory mechanism that ordered caste hierarchy. The key female figures are positioned in relation to boundaries, and their spatialization will reflect on their proximity (or distance) from patriarchal sexual expectations. using a variety of visual representations from this period, highlighting both the textual and visual landscape of Sita and her chastity. The right panel will feature Candravati’s subversion of expectations of similar characters, but instead of a visual spectrum of chastity, it will highlight its emotional quality, whereby all of the women in the Ramayana (especially Sita) emerge as victims of a ruthless patriarchal system, highlighting her subversive interiority. The central graphic will depict the agnipariksha as the key point of convergence between the two narratives, visually tracing how earlier representations of female sexual conduct culminate in the public questioning of Sita’s virtue. By positioning this trial at the compositional center, the poster highlights how the moral trajectories of other women shape the interpretive stakes of the scene, framing Sita’s chastity as a moment that crystallizes her mental and emotional condition under scrutiny.